Costuming year in review 5: Achievements

I think it will have be these two:

Making a wholly hand quilted garment:

And, making this gown in a week. And there's no visible hand stitching and I was working normal hours. And I only had scraps smaller than 10 cm/4 inches left when I finished.

Costuming year in review 4

Costuming year in review 4 - my biggest regret:

Taking in this one so much, because I have gained back some of the weight that I lost (mostly in the boobs) and now I can't wear it, but have to make a new kirtle for that outfit.

On the plus side the new one will probably be made from silk, not rayon curtain. But it's such a lovely damask.

Costuming year in review 3: New appreciation

Another hard one - this year has mostly been about continuing reserarch and making stuff from last year's two new periods/styles: Directoire and Empire (which wasn't a new appreciation, but I hadn't done much costuming from this era since I have nowhere to wear it) and, most importantly: late 13th and early 14th century Italian.

And I really appreciate all historical styles, and has done for many years. However, this year I returned to a style that I haven't made since the late 1990s, so that will have to be it.

I have also started, very slowly on a new pair of 18th century stays, and 18th century (before the revolution) I haven't made since 2007, so that is also a return.

There are also several periods/styles that I really appreciate, but have no reason for wearing, or don't make because "everybody else" are doing them so I feel that they are over done and this might be next year's "new appreciation"

Costuming year in review 2 - best acqusition

Well, due to some mishaps with her equipment and the fact that we don't really trust the Swedish post  - which meant that we didn't hurry this project because it's needs to be brought personally to Sweden when someone we know is travelling that way - my best acquisition of 2018 has not been finished, nor arrived yet. But it's amazing even in it's current state and will be my best acquisition for both 2018 and 2019.
See how beautiful it is even when it isn't finished yet.

It's by EvaJohanna Studios and she makes the most amazing stuff - check out her Etsy page.

2018 costuming year in review

The traditional summing up of what I have done is this year guided by the instagram hashtag costumingyearinreview.

Yesterday I was very busy so I will have to make two subejcts today. The first is the summing up:

January
The first costume that I made in 2018 was this Italian 15th century gown.

About the same time I finished my daughter Valeria's gown based on the one that Eleonora di Toledo was buried in. Including an embrodiered camicia.

February
In february I remade one of my old gowns for me (though now it is too small instead, so it will be sold) and one of my youngest daughter's gowns for her.

March
In march I went to New York, and I painted chests. No finished costumes apparently.

April
Then there was April, and a very early Double Wars (starting on the 5th of May) meant lots of preparations for that. The first thign was a night cap from wool, lined with linen.

May
The final days of April I started on an insane project: to make a 16th century Saxon court gown in less than five days, from materials in my stash. This is the result.

My Genuese outfit from c. 1330 was also finished in May:

It was already a little tight in the bust then, so I have now pieced it under the arms to make space for my again bigger boobs.

June

In June I made a new spencer to wear when I visited a late 18th century house with my friend Anna.

July

In July I made a late 18th century open robe from printed cotton, and a matching cap and hat.

August
More Regency happened in August. In the beginning of the month I had surgery on my foot and spent a lot of time on a couch. So I hand sewed a cotton gown from the first decade of the 19th century, and a new cap. I also made a cap for Anna, as a birthday present.

September
In September I hand sewed a linen shift with short sleeves and a half linen/half cotton sleeveless over gown, both from 1370s Italy.

I also went to the Abbegg Stiftung for a conference on Early Modern dress.

October
In October I went to Drachenwald's Autumn Crown and to Nürnberg and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum for a study visit.
I made a just-for-fun project in the form of a Landsknecht cheerleader outfit.

And I also started sewing on my 13th century aqueton, a quilted shift.

November
On November the 15th I had my stomach cut open an a titanium net inserted to keep my intestines on the inside of my muscles, not outside. This is a rather big thing and I'm still in recovery. I have however done some knitting, and finished the skirt part of a 16th century German gown (can't make the bodice until my torso is back to some kind of normal).

I also did a lot of hand quilting on my aqueton.

December

I made a pair of 18th century stays for one of my dolls.

And I finished the aqueton! Today!!!

This doesn't mean that the Golden Egg project is finished. I need to write both more detailed blog posts and an article for Dragon's tale (Drachenwald's newsletter) and I have more research to do, this has made me very inspired to make more quilted garments in the future. I also need to wear it to see how well it works as protection against cold, since that is what the original presumably was for. I plan to sleep in it at Double wars, but I need to do some testing outdoors before that. When my surgery has healed more.

Now I have to figure out what was the best acquisition. Not sure if I bought anything though.

God Jul! - Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody!

This year's Christmas Pin-up photos were inspired by vaudeville in some kind of mix of the late 19th century and the 1940s (the hair).

It's only a paper moon....

A pair of 18th century stays for my doll

Arabella has got herself a pair of 18th century stays.

And yes, it was a pain to sew the tabs and boring to make the lacing holes. Next thing to make is a panier or possibly a pair of pocket hoops.


In other news I am busy hand quilting the front piece of my 13th century sleeveless shift.

Behind the counters at "my" haberdasher

This movie shows how it looks behind in the inside of my favourite haberdasher her in Gothenburg: Knapp-Carlsson. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to embed it.

Link to movie on facebook

The quiliting has started

Since it requited me standing up for a longer while it was not until today that I got around to cutting the batting for my quilted 13th century aqueton - my Golden Egg challenge.

The cotton batting that I had bought was way too thick for the project, but also quite easy to take apart into layers.

First I cut the batting after the shape of the linen pieces, and then I pulled the layers apart.

I then pinned the second layer of linen on top of the batting. To secure it further I basted around all the edges, along the seams where the side gores are attached and from neck to hem in the middle. Helped by my trusted assistant Miss Esau (she's named after a cat in a Swedish comedy sketch, and we thought that we were going to have a boy cat again, but it works well for her too).

Then I removed to my couch and started quilting in front of the telly.

Apparently it is very tiring to help out.

Saxon court gown

After trying all my old rayon brocade curtains with my teal cotton velvet to see which worked best together (and which I had enough of) I chose a cream damask. Unfotunately, while it was pretty, it was something about the combination that felt more modern pretty than period pretty.

While blue isn't the most common colour for an early 16th century German gown there are still many examples of blue gowns, so there I felt secure - I have written a blog post with lots of blue early 16th century German gowns. Most of these either have gold or red/pink borders, so I felt that the cream just needed something more to give it a more period look.

The woman to the left in this image from Das Sächsische Stammbuch by Lucas Cranach the Elder gave me the solution:

On both edges of her gold brocade borders there is a rose red ribbon/trim. You also find this on her sleeves and crisscrossed over her brustfleck.

So, having decided that I spent weeks trawling the internet for trim that wopuld look nice, but not cost an arm and a leg, since I would need over 25 metres of it. 

There was a deadline for this too, since I was going to have a rather big surgery done on the 15th of November, and would not be able to leave home to go shopping for over a month after that. I was beginning to despair. But then I remembered this trim from an earlier visit to Göteborgs Remfabrik, a factory museum that actually makes trim, on 19th century machines.

And now, 24 metres later, I have a skirt:

It is not attached to anything, I've only gathered it with a belt. On top of the thick medical corset/girdle thingie that I will have to wear day and night for three weeks after the surgery, and at lleast one more week during the day, to help my flesh bond with the titanium net that they put tehre to keep my intestines inside my diaphragm instead of outside.

It will probably take quite a while before I have any idea of how my waist, well, most of my torso, will look so I don't count on making the bodice before spring. But at least the skirt is finished. And it's not like I don't have a lot of other craft projects to work on.

I am very tired and can't sit up for long times, so hand sewign and some knitting is what I have been doing. The latter is, however, made more complicated by this little lady, who bites off my yarn.

She is now 13 weeks old.

We have also adopted another rescued kitten, who was born in teh wild, and is c. 16 weeks old. Shhe mostly hides in the bathroom, but has started to come out more and more, even when we are at home and awake.

A start on the aqueton

Well, apart from test quiliting and reading the only thing that happened this autumn with my version of the aqueton of St. Isabelle of France was that I bought the linen fabric and the cotton batting. Well, I also prewashed the fabric.

Btu I have been working so much and also travelling, for conferences, study visits and the SCA. But tonight, when I was too tired to try to work I actually cut out the linen pieces. This photo shows the main body pieces; there are also four gores, two at each side, which are triangles with the tops cut off.

The Landsknecht cheerleader

At Drachenwald Crown Tourney I was the herald for sir Franz von Hohenklingen and his lovely wife Ida von Hohenklingen, who do early 16th century German. And for years I have promised him that I would be cheerleader if he ever fought in Crown.
So when it was announced two weeks before the event i started making a landsknecht cheerleader outfit. And pompoms. In the heraldic colours of sir Franz. The material is mainly polycotton from my father adn some remnants of purple cotton satin.

Photo by Ida Torp.

For preserved modesty I wore bike shorts under it.

I walked in wearing my long 16th century velvet robe, and only at the end of the boast that I had written for them I took it off and got my pompoms out of its pockets and started jumping and shouting.

I also heralded/boasted for Fru Margareta Arvidsson, fighting for Herr Erik Dalekarl. Fortunately they marched in before Franz and Ida so I looked reasonably normal when I heralded them.

A costume of the Count Elector August of Saxony

Those of you who study 16th century clothing are probably aware of the yellow and black suit of the count Elector Moritz of Saxony  (Good photos of the costume here). It is exhibited at the Dresden Rüstkammer and has been published in a 2008 publication from the Abbegg Stiftung. The Abbegg stiftung (foundation) is this extremely cool organisation that collects and conserve textiles - from ancient to the 19th century. Their museum is well worth a visit and their publications are top class. It was sheer will power that stopped me from buying more than these three. And the risk of having to pay for overweight on the plane.

You can see that I bought the book with Moritz' clothing.

However, Moritz was not the only count elector whose black and gold clothing has been preserved in the Rüstkammer. While visting the Abbegg Stiftung in Riggisberg this week  for the Dressing the early Modern Network's conference A taste for the exotic, which was organized in collaboration with the Abbegg foundation, we had the opportunity to visit their conservation workshops to see some of their current projects. The one that interested me most was a costume that belonged to Moritz of Saxony's successor: August.

Painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger, c 1572. From wikipedia

Very reasonably we were not allowed to take photographs from the studio. There will be a publication on this costume in either 2019 or 2020, which will undoubtedly provide both excellent photos, patterns and construction details.

However, I did make some sketches and notes and when I got home I made some better sketches, with pencil, pen and water colour.

While the yellow dominates in the costume now, it would have been dominantly black when worn, being completely covered with the black, embroidered net. The exception is the bodice of the doublet, which would not have been seen when worn with the jerkin.

As these drawings are made from sketches, notes and memory there are omissions and possible misunderstandings and mistakes, but until we have the publication it at least gives an idea of the costume. Including the interesting fact that the stockings were stitched to the bottom of the trunk hose, which would made it so much easier for them to be nice and taut, without wrinkling.

Now with trim

I have added trim to the neck and armscyes of my 1370s sleeveless gown and updated the page for that outfit in accordance with this. Here.

An old gown returns

I made this gown, a winter bliaut from medium thick wool in 2003. I wore it to one event, when I was tired and feeling sick, because I was pregnant with Maja.

After that it was definitely too small for me, so I gave it to a friend. Because I have thin arms even when I'm heavier she couldn't use it. She was going to change it, but never got around to. And today she returned it to me, since I can fit into it again.

I don't plan to wear it without headwear and with jeans and a short sleeved shirt under ;)

Blue

I felt so very, very pretty in my pink Saxon court gown, thrown together just for a themed party at Double Wars this year.

So I decided that I needed to make a slightly more historically correct one. I say slightly, because I will be using cotton velvet, but it's better than nylon velvet or whatever this gown was made from. 

I just have to decide if I'm going to have stripes from damask or from velvet, and how many, which design to use for the sleeves etc.

Blue isn't the most common colour in early 16th century German female dress, but I have collected quite a few of them.

Lucas Cranach:

Hunting near Hartenfels Castle

Das Sächsische Stammbuch

The Fountain of Youth

Don't remember the title, but it's from 1537, that I know.

Other artist from the Germanic areas

Uta von Schauenburg holding a dog from Weingartener Stifterbüchlein (circa 1510)

(1509-1510) Switzerland -  Basel, Universitätsbibliothek AN II 3 Matriculation Register of the Rectorate of the University of Basel, Volume 1 (1460-1567)

Splendor Solis, Das grosse Waschfest vor der Stad,1531

More Splendor Solis

Albrecht Altdorfer:

Austrian 1510-1520

c. 1501 Hans Burckmaier - Triumph of Maximilian I

Bernhard Strigel - Bride picture of a patrician lady

Suzanna of Bavaria, Margravine of Brandebourg-Culmbach by Barthel Beham

Masquerade, c. 1515 Rosenwald Collection

 Kantonsbibliothek Appenzell Ausserrhoden, CM Ms. 13

Some of these are lower class gowns, which would have been made from wool or wool mix fabrics, but s you can see there are also examples from the nobility. 

I have yellow damask that would look nice with my teal blue velvet and I coudl be inspired by the examples from the Sächsiche Stammbuch. But I would also feel like I'm wearing the Swedish flag.

I need to think about it some more.